He described himself as "over the moon" regarding the piracy of the first Insufferable episode, which took 24 hours from its release to be uploaded to various torrent and filesharing sites.

"Your mileage may vary but, me, I'm okay with torrenters and 'pirates' sharing Insufferable," Waid wrote on his blog.

"Not just because, what the hell, it's free anyway, Mr Cynic... My hand to God, even if we were charging for it, I'd still be happy because the exposure and promotion is worth more to me at this point than dollars and cents.

"But more than that... more than that... after having been hip-deep in the research for the past three years, I have seen zero conclusive evidence that, on the whole, 'piracy' removes more money from the system than it adds to it."

All of the current installments are now available to download and share.

Waid noted that no-one had bothered to remove the final page he had added directing people to the Thrillbent comics portal, making the filesharers into part of the site's marketing.

"So why be mad, I decided?" said Waid. "Why not turn file-sharing into a tool I can use and control more directly rather than yell at the ocean?"